Motivated leadership and mutual learning: a case study of promoting sustainable food consumption in an early childhood education centre in Aotearoa New Zealand

Food system transformation is urgently needed; although dominant food and sustainability discourses tend to focus on powerful stakeholders like governments and industries. We sought to understand how localised, community-based initiatives promote food system change, and how this is experienced by the people they are meant to involve or benefit. We conducted a reflexive qualitative case study with a community-oriented early childhood centre in Aotearoa New Zealand that developed an increasingly sustainable programme. This included providing plant-based food, a garden-to-table and nature-oriented pedagogical focus, and well-embedded low waste practices. We engaged with the community of school leaders, staff, and whānau to explore their processes, their experiences of changes made, and their challenges. Our case study methodology involved semi-structured interviews, group discussions, document analysis, and a reflexive thematic analysis. We identified two main themes, including (1) the importance of leadership for initiating and sustaining change; (2) experiences of changes were linked to relationships and shared learning. These findings contribute to understanding the complexities involved in shifting to sustainable food practices at a local, community-focused level; these might benefit other communities or the stakeholders working to better support them.